week 8: shake, rattle, and roll

Hello there. It was good to get back on the horse, storytime-wise, after a week off. No traffic nightmares this time, just a nice gray autumn day with a little bit of rain here and there. Let's get to it.

Class 1 and 2

Another really good storytime with Class 1 and 2. Unexpectedly, there were lots of new faces in the crowd. I expect kids to be absent pretty regularly, but was caught a little off-guard to see like seven or eight brand new (to me) storytime faces. The more the merrier, for sure. But it can make building solid momentum a slower process when you have a third of your kids new to the format, or that are sporadic attenders. Of course, if the Head Start is adding students as the year goes on there's your answer right there.

But that's not the point; it was a good storytime! Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! was, as always, well-received. Trashy Town continues to be a home run, right up there with Go Away, Big Green Monster! as a sure-fire Head Start storytime book. Sometimes I will cut a few pages out, because it can feel like Mr. Gilly makes a lot of stops to pick up trash. The Five Green Speckled Frogs felt board worked out... OK, I suppose. I used a pre-made felt board set that did not have a "pool" piece. I did not realize this until I was packing up all my stuff Thursday afternoon. And I didn't have any blue felt! I improvised, though, using white felt and a blue Sharpie to make literally the saddest excuse for a felt board pool you could possibly imagine. I'm not going include a picture of it, it's that sad. But the kids enjoyed it and that's all that matters.

Seals on the Bus fell flatter than I had anticipated, but thinking about it afterwards... I dunno, I guess I get it. The kids seemed ready to sing the song, and there I was, singing and trying to bring the book component into things. The flow felt a little weird. But then there were the shakers. Hooray! The shakers were a big hit, for sure. I asked everyone stand still where they were while I walked around handing them out, and I would say 75% of the kids did what I asked. That's a rousing success in a my book. We had lots of fun, and did the same "standing still" procedure for giving the shakers back. Some of the kids had a fascination with throwing the shakers into the box as hard as they could, but we talked about that not being OK and it was fine.

Class 3 and 4

Broken record time: another great storytime with Class 3 and 4! Hooray! Double broken-record: lots of new faces in the crowd, so there is definitely a thing going on. New kids are arriving. But they were still great: a little squirmier than Class 1 and 2, but getting caught up fast.

Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! brought the house down this time. Like, quasi-Go Away, Big Green Monster! levels of enthusiasm, which was (as always) really fun and really gratifying. There was one kid who did not enjoy the group's volume, but there's not much you can do about that. As I may have mentioned before, I won't encourage 3 and 4 year olds to have fun during storytime then try to micromanage that fun to "acceptable" levels.

Trashy Town was a hit, again. I definitely cut a few pages for this group, though. Five Green Speckled Frogs worked fine, lame pond and all, and Seals on the Bus felt a bit flat in the same way it did with Class 1 and 2. Maybe I just need to work with it some more and maybe try it again in the spring. Shakers, though... shakers were a mega-hit! It definitely sent things off the rails momentum wise, but that's OK. We just had to get enough semblance of order back together to sing our goodbye song with Gareth the turtle, and we did that. Next time will be a smoother transition, and the time after that, and so on. I am excited to incorporate shakers on a regular basis.